does anyone know?

did jack tell ed he was leaving before the tour, and so the band had enough time to get the search out for a new drummer and cameron came up and he is such a good drummer he learned all the songs really quickly.

are any or all of those parts of the story true?

pearl jam knew during the fall and found out before SVT, the Rolling Stones Oakland, and the Pacific Tour. like a "6 months notice" or something

well, he was sucking ass at the time.

I have no idea. I was much happier when I heard they got Cameron so I didn't bother to find much out.

no they didnt know. he found out either late in the south pacific tour or directly after from the doctor that he had a health issue that would prevent him from continuing. so matt filled in. if i remember right...at the time matt was just gonna fill in for the us tour and jack would come back, but i think he decided shortly after that he would in fact just call it quits. and then matt never had any intention of staying as his interviews showed during the making of binaural. but we all know how that worked out

yeah,
he signed a contract that says he'll only stay with pearl jam if eddie says at least 10 times per show how Matt is the greatest.

hey...some divas demand evian...others demand constant recognition

he used to do the same thing with Jack Irons though. He's just thrilled they're not Dave A.

The nice thing about a new album is that we haven't revisited the drummer debate in like 6 weeks.

do you have any sources on that in print. the whole thing seemed really undocumented and unexplored from what i could tell. thanks

I don't think it was as much a health issue as jack just didn't want to drum anymore for the jam anymore, I remember eddie saying in an interview that theyreally didn't talk much for awhile up until recently( that was 03 at the time).

I read an interview with Jack from 03 where he said it was a mental breakdown. It was sudden and put Pearl Jam in a bind. Mike has expressed in an interview how upset he was with Jack and didn't really feel like talking to him for a long time after.

just what i remember reading at the time and after. guess it sounds like other sides of the story have turned up in recent years so who knows really since we arent in the band.

I remember that the official story at the time was that Jack had really bad carpal tunnel syndrome and that drumming was too painful.

I always had the feeling that Jack was keeping the stool warm for the next guy. I wasn't really surprised when he left because I guess I never thought he was here to stay.

Jack's problem was he had a mental breakdown. He ALWAYS had a problem with carpal tunnel in that, Jack is not a hard-thumping drummer. And a lot of PJ's song require a hard-hitting drummer. Even Dave A. was having serious wrist problems when he was with the band. So Jack always had an issue with the length of shows and what they played. That's why so many of the classic songs off Vs. or Ten tended to not be played as readily with Jack as opposed to songs off No Code.

The mental breakdown issue was something Jack had grappled with since he was with the RHCP. After leaving the Peppers he really didn't tour much and it wasn't like Eleven was ever a hard touring machine. I think Jack did leave PJ in a bind after the OZ tour. But he had mental issue he had to work out and recover. Matt really stepped up and I think the original story was he would just do the tour. THen after the tour, they asked him to do a record and tour again (Binaural). Then finally after that, it became, well, he's our drummer. And that's where we're at. Jack's website talks in depth about his mental illness problem.

check out past rumour pits, they seem to back up danny's info. theres questions right through '98 as to whether jack was coming back. seems as if matt himself didnt know he was going to become official

i dont know about the mental issues, but if you recall, through the vitalogy and no code tours even through some of the yield tour he was a part of. except for glorified g, (if you hear some old boots you'll hear altered lyrics going "glorified virgin of i hate this song") .. ALL of the vs. and ten classics were being played...and the carpal tunnel wasnt because he "wasnt a hard thumping drummer", it was due to his bad technique. didnt play properly, dave a. probably had a similar problem mixed with how hard he played.

thanks for positively contributing to this discussion.

i always though Jack had a sudden decline in health and couldn't keep doing it.

You're welcome - I mean come on, this shit gets discussed every week. It's boring. It's a drumkit, you hit it, big deal